Let me see if I can
answer their questions:
Why Choose an IILAA agent?
Because you have too much money in your bank account and no desire to actually be published by a legitimate publisher.
What is an agent's job?
To represent the clients that they already have: to guide their clients' careers, to represent their clients' works to (and negotiate the most favorable contracts possible with) publishers; to keep track of rights and royalties, and much else besides.
Retainer Fees- To Pay or not to pay?
Not to pay.
Top Ten Best Independent Literary Agents
Hey, guys, you missed a few. You can go to the Top Twenty Best Independent Literary Agents because we've already done the research for you:
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html
How to spot hate sites who prey on the insecurities of writers.
Look for sites that say it's common and acceptable for agents to charge up-front fees, that it's common and acceptable to hire a "professional editor" prior to submission, that it's common and acceptable to pay to be published, that publishers only publish books by celebrities or previously published and/or big-name authors, that 'bookstores are lousy places to sell books,' that publishers do not market and/or promote all of their books, and that the 'watchdog groups' are all in the pay of some shadowy conspiracy to keep new writers down.
Publishing Myths
See
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005540.html for a starting point.
Coming soon
More blather from this group of agents who couldn't sell a book to a legitimate publisher if you held a gun to their heads.